Egalité
by Maenad1
Summary: Les Amis de l'ABC at war with the aristocracy, both magical and mundane.
1. Prologue

22nd January, 1793.

The Marquis d'Orfevre was famous for his wines.

Contained in his musty cellar were some of the finest products of the vineyards of France and Italy, Portugal and Spain. There were, rumour had it, vintages that the most reputable connoisseurs of the era believed lost, vintages that said connoisseurs had never even heard of; wines that could plunge the drinker into the ecstasy of a Bacchanalian orgy, wines that could stir the soul to ascend to the heavens to sup amidst angels and gods, wines whose very aroma sapped will and self control, wines that liberated the mind from the torturous constraints of reason, the very bottles from which the murderers of Pentheus and Orpheus had imbibed.

This was all very well, and the cause of much speculation amongst the populace; what was curious was that, in a time when aristocratic estates were being plundered like ships beset by pirates, the clergy was being hustled from its monasteries with barely time to advise the saints to pack and the nobility was having enough trouble retaining possession of its many well coiffed heads, nobody had thought to assemble a crowd with a few burning brands and pitchforks and go and investigate this fantastic store of liquor. But the charming manor house in the south of France where the Marquis spent his summers was one of the few left unmolested, his peasantry unusually docile, his business affairs flourishing.

It was over a year since the Marquis himself had entered his storeroom, and he did so now with rather more exertion than appreciation; the iron bound door had rusted in some places and rotted in others and seemed undecided as to whether it ought to stick or shatter, attempting to do both with the marginal success of leaving splinters in fingers and dusty brown smudges on its frame, and falling closed behind the entrant with a muffled 'humph!' Olivier Prouvaire, the Marquis d'Orfevre, was a stocky man of around thirty, with a pale complexion, the pinched, haughty nostrils of the aristocracy and a receding hairline rendered visible by the powdered wig knocked askew on his broad forehead. His lacy cuffs had been sullied in the tussle with the door and one of his stockings had developed a wrinkle to make laundresses cringe, so that he resembled Hamlet enacting a lunatic; the fact that his estates were so far regarded as sacrosanct didn't seem to have lessened his anxiety in the least.

Within it was dank and dim: the walls lined with racks and shelves, laden with casks swollen like underworld pomegranates oozing immortality and bottles layered over with particles of dust that pressed longingly against the glass that separated them from the liquor, the clutter of old furniture discarded in a corner, the inventory abandoned by a careless steward on the small table by the door, defined it as a cellar, but it needed only the addition of a rack of a different kind and a few chains to make of it an oubliette.

Those tiny slits of nostrils wrinkled in distaste, almost sealing up completely and giving the impression that too much displeasure might cause their owner to asphyxiate, and the Marquis extracted from his breast pocket a taper and a wooden rod, too thick for a pen and too short for a cane and despite its general high polish bearing the greasy smudge of the constant grasp of palm and fingers at one end. "_Incendio_," he murmured, waving the latter; the taper kindled as if sparked by flint and steel, and the Marquis walked solemnly around the room, touching his miraculous implement to the stubs of candles set in brackets around the damp walls. Several of these merely hissed and sputtered and went out again, so the effect produced was little better than a spectral glow, pooling in corners and fading away entirely before reaching the room's centre.

"My dear Prouvaire, you do choose the most dramatic settings for a rendezvous."

At first glance, one might have been forgiven for thinking that one of the candles had spoken. Where there had been no one a moment before there was now a tiny, weedy personage with fair, crystalline hair whose ends caught the light and flitted through the entire spectrum and an impressive sneer that ran from his equally colourless eyes right down to the toes that were concealed by the hem of an immaculate black velvet robe.

"My apologies, Monseigneur," the Marquis turned without surprise from the candle he was attempting to light to bow courteously to his guest. "Unfortunately, this is not likely to be a drawing room conversation."

"I would hope not, considering the hysterical tone of your letter," the other drawled, stepping out of the shadows and fastidiously dusting off hands that had, after all, come within a foot of the grimy walls. "What is the crisis, then?"

"If you will wait a moment for the others, Monseigneur," the Marquis suggested patiently, though not without a nervous glance at the door, "I will explain."

"You could as easily begin now and enlighten the others as they arrive."

"Impatient as ever, Malfoy?" Another voice, this one dry, spoke and two more men stepped out of the shadows.

"Enjolras," Malfoy murmured, by way of greeting. "How fares my sister?"

"Madame is well and sends her respects," Enjolras replied with the glib air of an indifferent actor reciting a prepared speech. "This is our son, Donatien. He may hear what you have to say, Prouvaire?"

The resemblance between Messieurs Malfoy and Enjolras was so striking that they might have been brothers. Both were slight, diminutive figures, long bodied and with legs shorter than Odysseus', giving them a stoop to their shoulders usually associated with tall men, their cheekbones were chiselled, their complexions marble, their noses Grecian. Only the eyes offered any definite difference: where Malfoy's were a murky grey, Enjolras' were a vibrant blue, and if what grew on his son's head was any indication, Monsieur Enjolras' hoary curls had once been golden. By some stroke of good fortune the young man had escaped his father's unimpressive stature; he was the only one of the present company capable of looking the Marquis in the eye.

"Bonsoir, Olivier," he said cheerfully, looking with frank amusement at his host's disordered hair. "What the devil is that thing on your head?"

"Donatien! I haven't seen you since you were a child- oh. Muggle fashion," the Marquis said wryly, hastily snatching the wig from his scalp. "There's no accounting for it."

"If we are all assembled, Prouvaire?" Malfoy interrupted the pleasantries irritably.

"One more, Monseigneur- ah, there he is."

And as the Marquis spoke, another man materialised, this one white haired and venerable, with gold embroidery on his robe.

"Monsieur Saulnier," said Malfoy, with dislike thinly disguised beneath a veneer of respect. "_Now_, Prouvaire?"

"Certainly, Monseigneur, I will begin," replied Prouvaire, suddenly grave. "The king is dead."

"Which king?" Enjolras senior sounded puzzled.

"Ours."

"Ours?"

"Louis XVI, the King of France!" the Marquis slapped his palm against the wall in exasperation, scorching his hand on the taper, still lit in his hand. "They executed him yesterday."

"Well, what difference does that make to us?" Malfoy's eyes rolled towards the ceiling. "Ordering clandestine meetings in damp cellars because some ridiculous _Moldu_ monarch has been strung up by a usurper. You've grown too attached to these creatures you study, Prouvaire."

"Careful with your candle: it's still lit," Donatien murmured, and added compassionately: "Did you know him?"

"I've met the man," Prouvaire said, regarding the assembled company with growing dismay. "But that isn't the point; and it isn't a usurper, it's the revolution. Didn't I tell you it wouldn't end with the Bastille?"

"You mean the Muggle prison?" Donatien asked, brow furrowed. "What of it?"

"They tore it down, years ago."

"Why would they do that..?"

"What's the date?" the Marquis demanded in response to this question, in an apparent non sequitor.

"It's- the twenty-second of January, I believe."

"And the year?"

"Prouvaire, what are you playing at?"

"Humour me."

"Seventeen Ninety-three, as well you know."

"Wrong on both counts," Prouvaire replied smugly. "It is the second of Pluviôse, year one. Gentlemen, a new world is clambering out of a womb of the gods, and you've managed not to hear its newborn cries. May any god help you when the thunderbolt hits."

"Then you predict danger to us, from this?" rumbled Saulnier, theretofore silent, his bushy eyebrows drawn down over his eyes like fur cowls. "You expect repercussions?"

"Monsieur," said Prouvaire seriously, "my drawing room is at present occupied by a cluster of terrified young Muggle noblemen, who thought they could ride out the revolution, and are beginning to think otherwise. Half of them killed their horses getting here, and they claim to have four comrades who were stopped and held by the authorities along the way. Most of their parents emigrated years ago; if the situation continues to deteriorate they will all be dead men or paupers. We are sheltered by our separation from Muggle concerns; our bourgeoisie have not yet caught the whiff of rebellion, but they're not far from it. Do you know what your peasants are doing, messieurs?"

"Not paying their rent on time, if my steward is to be believed," Malfoy shook his head. "Though I suspect he's robbing me. Other than that, very little."

"Wrong again, Monseigneur," Prouvaire retorted, with only the barest hint of courtesy. "My spies report that there have been more escapes from your estate than any other. They say the Muggle borns have discovered how to break memory charms. And the rebels, dispersed as they are amongst the Muggle population, are well aware of current events. How long before they subvert the lesser pureblood families to their cause? How long before our heads rot on pikes beside those of the Muggle aristocrats?"

"Will there be a war, then?" Donatien asked; the flush of excitement that rushed to his cheeks with these words made him look suddenly, and improvingly, unlike his stern father.

"There's no need to exaggerate, _mon fils_," Enjolras said quellingly. And more thoughtfully: "My aurors _have_ been bringing in unusually large numbers of unregistered magic users. The trouble with broken memory charms is that they leave gaps, and make the subject's testimony legally invalid. I daresay none of my people have bothered to interrogate the men they apprehended. What are you suggesting, Prouvaire?"

"Only that inactivity hasn't served the Muggles well. I doubt emulating them will help us."

"And what are you going to do?" from the laconic Saulnier, still frowning.

"_Moi_, monsieur?" the Marquis shrugged. "Until the Council tells me otherwise, I will continue in my position as Ambassador. In that guise, I will thus be concealed in the hold of a very disreputable merchant vessel on its way to England tomorrow morning, with my fellow panicked noblemen, before my arrest is ordered and I am forced to do something it would take an enormous amount of work to cover up in defending myself. From _Angleterre _I will await further instructions."

"I see; you'll continue to play games," Malfoy snapped, "leaving us to clean up the mess you were supposed to be monitoring-"

"Have been monitoring, if any attention had been paid to my reports."

"Were supposed to be monitoring, Monsieur Prouvaire, and if we are only being informed of this now, have failed to do. If there are runaway serfs, they will have to be retrieved, memory charms will have to be reset, aurors will have to be sent after the radical groups, countless tampered with devices will have to be collected. Who knows what botched spells those incompetents will have cast that will have to be undone. And-"

"And when the situation is resolved, one way or another, contact with the Muggle world will have to be re-established." Prouvaire's fingers unconsciously tightened on his wand. "My family has held this position for nearly a hundred years; my contacts have been damaged enough these past few years, if I lose them entirely, who will take my place? You, Monseigneur Malfoy? Play the Muggle? Or will you send some pretentious Courfeyrac or Chastel or Farjeon with barely enough pure blood to pass through the census? A Bahorel, as likely as not to betray us to his Giant cousins?"

"If you continue in this vein, monsieur," Malfoy said icily, "I will be obliged to challenge you to a duel."

"Messieurs!" It was Enjolras' turn to look exasperated, though his son, who had been watching the exchange avidly, looked disappointed at the interruption. "This is hardly improving the situation."

"Prouvaire is right," said Saulnier reflectively. "But you should use a portkey to transport those _Moldus_ boys out, to save mishap; I authorise you, only remember to correct their memories afterwards, and for God's sake don't splinch anyone. You'll be called back to report at the next Council meeting, on the seventh of February."

"Or whatever month it happens to be in the new world," quipped Donatien, earning himself glares from his father and Malfoy.

"I'll have a word with my aurors," said Enjolras grimly. "We lost too many in the Great Gigantomachy, though I thought the new lot were better trained. Viable testimony or not, they should have questioned those escaped serfs. We'll fetch them out of incarceration, and see what they have to say about the Muggle born rebels."

"Will they talk, do you think?" asked Saulnier.

"Would you protect men who abducted you from your home, stripped you of your illusions and then abandoned you to the authorities? They'll talk."

"And if they don't," said Malfoy, equally severe, "there are methods to loosen their tongues."

"You know my opinion on your truth serums, Malfoy," said Enjolras, calmly. "Until you kill fewer than half of your test subjects, I prefer not to use them on people I would like to keep in a condition conducive to answering questions."

"Let's not have another quarrel," said Saulnier reasonably. "Enjolras will deal with the aurors and Prouvaire will continue to monitor events from the Muggle world. I suggest, Malfoy, that you-- and all of us-- attend to our estates and limit the number of escapees that the aurors have to deal with. I will make enquiries of my own. This situation can be salvaged, from our perspective. We are not, I hope, as short sighted as Muggles."

"_Merci_, Monsieur," Prouvaire said with a bow. Malfoy and Enjolras nodded curtly; Donatien observed, wide-eyed.

"Now, I am sure we all have things to do. Where were you planning to take those Muggle boys, Prouvaire?"

"Our eventual destination was London. It will be simpler if we go straight there."

"Very good. Owl me when you arrive. You will be at the Prefecture, Enjolras?"

"No doubt all night," Enjolras said ruefully.

"Then I will contact you there."

"_Oui_, monsieur."

"Let us depart, then."

There were three soft pops as the others Disapparated, and only the Marquis and the younger Enjolras were left in the wine cellar. Donatien hesitated.

"Is it so bad as all that, Olivier?"

"It might be," said Prouvaire. "If the Muggle borns have been absconding in small numbers since 1692, and have been surviving, consider how many there may be by now. And if they're getting bold enough to carry off serfs in noticeably large numbers--"

"Then it _will_ be war."

"After a fashion," the Marquis smiled. "Go along, Donatien, I have to explain about portkeys to fifteen confused Muggles and have their memories wiped of it all by tomorrow. And your father will wonder what's become of you."

"I was afraid you'd say that," Donation grinned. "_Mon père_ will have me owling summons and howlers to aurors well into tomorrow, if I go back. Anyway, au revoir, until the next crisis."

"Au revoir."

A final pop, and the Marquis was alone. "_Nox,_" he said, extinguishing the candles he had taken such pains to light with a single wave of his wand, and went to gather up his Muggle charges.


	2. Chapter One

29th September, 1826.

A casual observer might have said that the boy and the room were at odds, intent on out doing each other at incongruity.

At least, he might have said that if he had the time or the inclination to study the scene long, which would put him in the class of wit cracking idlers, the masters of cafés and university corridors, so he might have added that together they resembled some painting done by a seventeenth century philosopher with pretensions to artistic talent, to illustrate the superiority of man to the rest of Creation.

The young man was undeniably handsome, in the severe style of Classical statues with the paint worn off them: pale hair and pale skin and pale eyes, respectably and soberly dressed, but awkwardly, with his cravat slightly askew and bulges swelling on his shoulders, beneath his coat where shirt and waistcoat had bunched together, giving the uncomfortable impression that he might _really_ be a statue: some surviving Roman copy of a better done Greek original, some Apollo or Hermes or Achilles who, tired of being gawked at, had crept down off his pedestal and hastily thrown on the first clothes that had come his way, with only the barest idea of how to do up the fastenings.

He had taken up temporary residence in the back room of a café, a hybrid cell, part storeroom, part parlour, with a few solid tables surrounded by rickety stools, expensive lamp brackets on the walls, a testament to more prosperous days, dust on the floor, grime on the walls and mould in the corners, fireplace choked with ash and windows obscured by crates half full of spare cutlery and vegetables (the room was adjacent to the kitchen), in need of cleaning and habitation to be reputable, or further neglect to be quaint.

And he was waiting.

There was a definite air of anticipation, though he didn't look at his watch, if he possessed a watch, or pace, or look towards the door, or start every time there was a noise in the street; more than anything else, he was doing _nothing_, and statue or no, he didn't look the type to be idle without a purpose.

What he was waiting for came soon enough, if not by the usual means, at least not what the majority of the populace might call usual, as the man entered with a magical 'pop' and not by the door or even a window.

However he arrived, he looked benign enough: a nondescript sort of fellow, neither plain nor handsome, with abundant and hopelessly disordered sandy-brown hair and clever hazel eyes, clad in a dusty brown robe that made the floor look polished to a shine by comparison; an impoverished scholar in an old dressing gown, or a monk without a tonsure. For a few moments he seemed confused, as if he had come somewhere other than where he had intended to, then his eyes lit upon his fair haired companion, and his expression changed, sharply, and his robe billowed a little, as if his knees had buckled beneath its folds. "Lucien!"

"Hello, Combeferre," returned the other, extending a hand.

"When I got the letter, I half thought it was one of Aurelien's less tasteful jests, except that I couldn't conceive of him learning to use the Muggle post," Combeferre was less mild mannered, now, and flustered enough to be slightly ridiculous. "After two years, you say 'hello.' _Mon Dieu_, do you know I've had howlers from your mother every other week?"

"What do you mean?"

"Where did you go? They had aurors searching for you; nobody detected even a trace of magic."

"That would be because I didn't use any. I _said_ I was leaving for a while."

"_Mon ami_, did you think to mention an estimated time of return?"

"Well…" he considered, letting his proffered hand fall and using his other to prop his chin. "Oh, damn. Was there much trouble?"

"Other than your mother's hysteria, and your father petitioning your grandfather to have the aurors search for you, and every acquaintance you've ever had pestered to keep his eyes open, no, no trouble at all," Combeferre looked at the newly found fugitive with mingled curiosity and exasperation. "Irresponsibility isn't like you. Myself, I thought you must be dead-- where _have_ you been?"

"Studying," said the boy, which recalled him to his purpose, and he sat up straighter. "Which is why I wrote you in the first place."

"But studying _what_? And where? Aurelien is learning business from an uncle in Lyon and studiously avoiding a respectable marriage, Jean is apprenticed to a poet who swears he can conjure up the muses with the proper incantation in some new form of verse and Eduoard-- well, that's a tale of woes for another day-- but you vanished."

"Oddly enough, I've been here, studying law--"

"At the _Moldu_ school?"

"_Oui_, at the university. In two years I've learned enough to have a rudimentary understanding, and I've read over some of our old legal documents, from before the introduction of the Statute, and the complexity of some of them, the mixture of magic and eloquence, is extraordinary. And alarming, once you realise what they imply; I've looked around a bit, and I think I've seen enough to justify my suspicions. Jérémie, we have to do something."

"At least that explains why you're dressed for a pantomime," Combeferre eyed his friend's clothing sceptically. "To begin with, owl your mother."

"That's not-" catching his friend's expression, the fair haired man capitulated. "Hysterics?"

"Well," Combeferre shrugged. "You know Madame Enjolras. I haven't seen her, of course, but she was anxious enough to contact me, and that, surely, indicates something."

The younger Enjolras grimaced wryly; he was well aware of his family's capacity for snobbery. Their blood was ancient, older than the idea of France, which many of them felt made them superior to it, and their wealth, unlike that of many aristocratic clans, had, though it had dipped and struggled and rebounded at half strength on innumerable occasions, endured to the present. Inevitable flights, emigrations and name changes with the passing of centuries and the fall of the various regimes which they had supported had left enormous gaps in the family records and their exact origins were shrouded in mystery, but according to family tradition their most ancient ancestor had been one Delphos, reputed to be a son of Apollo and skilled in the art of divination, who had given his name to a famous sanctuary in Greece. The less charitable, of course, noted that the ancient Romans had claimed contradictorily to be descended from both Romulus and Aeneas, and offered more evidence to support their assertions that _la famille Enjolras_.

"All right, I concede the point," in defeat, Enjolras was irritable. "I'll send off a letter or two and face parental recriminations. But that was hardly what I wanted to discuss with you."

"No, I know. You've got that look about you; I know how obsessed you can become when you're struck by these moral epiphanies," Combeferre finally took a seat and proffered the hand he hadn't deigned to give his friend before. "It _is_ good to see you. I thought a kappa, or something equally outlandish, must have got you. What do we have to do something about?"

Enjolras shook his hand, grudgingly. "I hardly thought I'd have to tell you."

"_Mon ami_, I have studied many things in my time, but mind reading isn't one of them."

"But you have read the French provisions under the Secrecy Statute, haven't you?"

"In years gone by, _oui_."

"And found it to be perfectly equitable?"

"Oh, of course not, Lucien. We've had this discussion before. To begin with, the Statute itself was written by a group of extremely paranoid aristocrats and any one member of the draft committee was likely to belong to a country at war with the homelands of at least half of the other members. What I wonder at, given the political climate of the age, is that it got written at all. Secondly, while some of our own stipulations regarding Muggles and such offspring of theirs as possess magical talent certainly bordered on barbaric, we are not anywhere near so backward as some of our fellow nations, and by dint of hard work and reasonable debate, a good many of those laws have been repealed. Think of the 1815 statute, following England's lead, that defined Muggles as 'beings,' with basic rights, and it has been projected that by the end of the century they'll have got through a law banning the use of memory charms on any non-consenting being."

"1815, the twentieth century," Enjolras slapped his palm on the table, giving Combeferre an exasperated look. "Your trouble is that you're always half a century behind or a whole one ahead, when it's now that an entire class of people with inborn talent are being reduced to serfdom. Whatever the scholars may predict, conditions are not improving. Since the Muggle revolution their have been _increased_ strictures, and I cannot conceive of any law that would deny the right to use memory charms. Too much depends on keeping people ignorant. If they could comprehend what had been done to them, if their families learned what had become of them-- Jérémie, our society not only condones, but _relies_ on these atrocities; the Council supports the aristocrats, and the Muggle kings comply, no doubt for their own purposes. It's inexcusable. You haven't seen."

"No, not what you have, evidently," Combeferre looked pensive. "But I've seen a few things of my own. Luc, I don't claim to understand quite what you're suggesting, but from your tone, it sounds radical."

"_I'm_ not sure what I'm suggesting, yet. Only that things have to change. We've built a world on foundations of lies and secrecy, and it's causing suffering on both sides of the wall. I've made a comparative study of legislation from before and after the Statute was instituted and-- well, I'm half taught, and I have only the barest grasp of the complexities, but even I can mark the difference. Intellectually, we've crippled ourselves. All the emphasis we place on magical ability, all the cantrips we're taught in place of the ability to reason. How does a man's aptitude for spell casting relate to his proficiency as an administrator? It may ensure his strength of will, but it's no guarantee as to his intellect--"

"Or to his moral capacity, I understand you."

"And the Muggles-- you can't imagine the things they die of. Typhoid, cholera, pneumonia, tuberculosis, bubonic plague. They don't see a hundred years, most of them don't see fifty. Their physicians are fumbling along with potions we discarded centuries ago; I've heard the medical students talk. Nor can they produce what we can, not with just their hands to work with. We're sinking into our own separate savageries, because we refuse to acknowledge that more than one class of society has anything to contribute."

It was peculiarly engrossing, this outburst of fervour. Two years worth of thoughts, analysis, half contrived plans and half grown ideals all tumbling out, haphazardly, in untutored rhetoric, and Combeferre, caught up in it, reached out and grasped Enjolras' wrist. "Conclusion," he demanded. "What's your solution? Your ideal resolution of this untenable situation. Say you could wave that disused wand of yours."

"You want me to conjure up utopia?"

"Precisely." Combeferre's tone was both scholarly and authoritative. He was, alas, one of those unfortunates who, despite all their aspirations, inevitably end as professors or librarians. "After two years, you tell me you don't know what you want? That's not like you at all. You know, but you think I'll disapprove, so you're breaking it to me slowly, so I've agreed with you before I know quite what you're plotting. Don't think I don't know you, Enjolras."

"No," Enjolras' brow furrowed. "There you're wrong. It's not what I _want_ that eludes me, but rather how to achieve it, which is part of why I need your help. But very well: put simply, I think the much vaunted International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy should be reversed. Whatever the reasons for implementing it in the first place, which have never struck me as particularly compelling, they no longer apply. We need a single government and a single society, not two separate ones striving against each other and grinding the people to pulp between them. A government representing both Wizards and Muggles, and elected from both communities, rather than magic or birth or money being allowed to determine a man's fitness for office. Equality-- like the old revolutionaries said: _liberté_, _egalité_, _fraternité_."

Something that fell between a hiss and a low whistle escaped Combeferre's lips, and he withdrew his hand. "Even if that was achieved here, and I doubt they'll allow you to step in and strip away all their reforms without a protest, it would mean war. England, Germany, Italy, China, the wizards of other nations wouldn't tolerate France depriving them of their anonymity. Because once the box is opened, _mon ami_, everything comes out, for good or for ill."

"So we must proceed with caution," Enjolras concurred, gravely. "To begin with, I could well be wrong; I want to test the waters. Your opinion is invaluable, but we need others. Nobody thinks of the Muggles; I confess I didn't, to start with, except to find out what I could about the lives of Muggle-borns. But I've learned a few things since, and they're _discontent_, Jérémie. Perhaps not enough to act, not yet, but they _have_ in the past and they will again in the future. They want what a wholly Muggle, or wholly Wizarding, government could never provide: the liberty of their philosophers and the prosperity of our industry. What our fellows think of the matter I've been away too long to be sure. And then there are the Muggle-borns. They concern me most of all. If it turns out to be true of France, odds are it'll be true of other nations as well. Then we've only to find allies."

"_We_ is it, already?" Combeferre regarded him affectionately, despite his ire. "I swear, you're incorrigible. You've got your heart set on this mad scheme, and I'm expected to play Tiresias to your Pentheus and give you advice you've no intention of heeding."

"Tell me I'm wrong. Can you tell me honestly that they don't put incompetent after incompetent in the chairs of the Council, because their colleagues know what would happen if it came to a duel? That the cries of a Muggle child matter less than those of a Wizard one? That we don't waste half our resources on this ridiculous _secrecy_? That the laws are as fair as they would have us believe? That the rumours of the Malfoy's mansions that we used to thrill ourselves with as children don't give you a less exhilarating thrill when you consider what those rumours might be based on?"

"No, I can't. Your motives have never worried me. Those least of all. But you're not telling me everything, and you know full well that--"

"You'll help me?" Enjolras was triumphant now. "I was counting on it, Combeferre_._"

"Yes, I'll help you. Though I can't claim to know how. You're the new expert on Muggles, and God knows I'm not well enough acquainted with polite society to learn anything there. I'm not the man you need for that at all; you should have written to Jean.

"Do you think he'd come?"

"How can I say? He, like all of us, is cloistered away somewhere," Combeferre gestured vaguely out a boarded window, into the unknown. "Avoiding his responsibilities."

"If by that you're inferring that I'm in hiding," Enjolras shook his head, "you've missed the mark again. My conscience brought me here and, I confess, my curiosity."

"Oh, nonsense," Combeferre snorted, amused. "Don't play at innocence with me, you're not so much of a fool. 'No one detected a trace of magic,' I said, and you replied, 'because I didn't use any.' Not even to heat a little water, or get those ridiculous _Moldu_ garments properly fastened? Perhaps you _didn't_ know your grandfather had his men looking for you, though I can't see how you could have missed it, even utterly immersed in the Muggle world, but you knew somebody would be looking, and you didn't want to draw attention to yourself."

"Not until I'd sorted a few things out, no," Enjolras confessed, wryly. "But that's neither here nor there, and I wasn't actively avoiding anyone."

"Only _in_actively."

"All right, M'sieur l'auror. Perhaps you ought to take up that profession yourself. Haven't you chided me enough? What I wanted to know was whether you thought Prouvaire would assist us."

"Honestly, Lucien. You know him at least as well as I do. Why would I know better than you?"

"In two years, men can change," Enjolras looked uncomfortable. "If he remembers me at all, I daresay he's as affronted as you seem to be. Besides, not knowing his ideals, I wouldn't presume on an old acquaintance for so serious a matter unless I was desperate. However rash you think me, I'm not entirely without thought. This is only for the dedicated to risk."

"So you wouldn't presume on old friends, would you?"

"_That_ was entirely different," Enjolras smiled, a rare and charming expression. "_Mon ami_, I knew you wouldn't fail me."

"Ahh," Combeferre offered his hand again, and Enjolras took it, solemn once more. "Well, I can't vouch for Prouvaire absolutely. To begin with, the fact that I know his whereabouts doesn't mean that I've associated with him all that much, and anyway you know what happened to his parents during the Muggle Revolution. But as far as I can tell, he's much as he always was. He'll hear you out, if nothing else, and whatever he decides, I doubt he'll go running to the Council and denounce you as a traitor."

"Then that is settled."

"Indeed. You can send off two owls at once."

"No," Enjolras grimaced, recollecting his promise. "On second thought, _you_ owl him. I'll write to Maman; the Muggle post will find her eventually, they found you easily enough, however inconspicuous we may try to be, and she'll set things right with the authorities. In the meantime, being arrested by aurors while trying to send off an owl at the post office would be inconvenient, to say the least."

"As you wish, m'sieur, though I doubt I'm the person best qualified to explain what you're after. Where shall I tell him to come, if he should deign to accept the invitation?"

"Here, I suppose. I've reserved this room every evening for a month, in case we needed somewhere private to talk. The walls of my lodgings are thin enough that every Muggle on the street could hear us plotting."

"A whole month? Didn't the owner think that odd?"

"No doubt he did," Enjolras' expression was as grave as ever, but there was a subtle glint of humour in his eyes. "Unfortunately, I still haven't got the hang of Muggle currency. I may very well have offered him a tremendous fortune in exchange for this service, as he didn't seem hurried to question his luck."

"_Mon Dieu_, he must think you're mad."

"Foreign, more likely. Which is perhaps for the best, though it galls me."

"Perhaps so," Combeferre agreed, stifling his chuckles. "And, presuming our old friend _does_ come, Apparating as I did, how do you intend to explain these extraordinary arrivals, if he should chance to enter? Even _foreign_ Muggles couldn't appear and disappear at will, last I heard."

"There is," Enjolras turned and coolly pointed a finger towards the far wall, adjacent to a disused alley. "Another door."

"Ingenious," the scholarly boy acknowledged, still barely containing his mirth. "You've thought of everything."

"Then stop laughing at me," Enjolras suggested, dryly. "Surely you have business to attend to. Come to that, what have you been doing with yourself these past years?"

"Business being done, we can turn to civility, I see," Combeferre retorted, but he stopped laughing. "Since you enquire so politely, _mon ami_, I have been studying medicine at various places-- they shunt us poor students around the hospitals on broomsticks as if we were training to stop bludgers instead of to fix broken bones-- but as they'll command my attention only four days out of the week, I shall have as much time to assist you as you care to use."

"And more than I have spare to use you. These Muggle professors are veritable slave drivers. Their despots learn their tyranny from their school masters, I'm certain. How long do you think it'll take to get a reply from Prouvaire?"

"Hard to tell. I'd hazard a week, to be safe. None of his owls are particularly reliable. I think he picks them for their plumage."

"All right, then. Ask him to meet us here, at six 'o'clock, ten days hence. Whether the answer's yes or no, we'll reconvene here then and plan our next move. And in the meantime, Combeferre, you ought to acquire some Muggle attire. You're conspicuous, like that."

"Do you mean to say I shall have to dress like you?" Combeferre plucked at the sleeves of his robe, looking dismayed. "It's hard enough to keep from laughing just looking at you, without being stuffed into those outlandish garments myself."

"Sacrifices, _mon ami_," if Enjolras' lips didn't twitch, his eyebrows certainly did. "One must make sacrifices."

"So I'm told," Combeferre rose, shaking his head. "And I strongly suspect I am being willed to go and write a certain letter. Subtlety was never your strength, Lucien."

"Another reason why I require your assistance."

"To teach you tact? God save me from that task, old friend. I would almost certainly fail, and if I succeeded the world would be a less candid place. Still, if I must give a lesson, I must: write to your mother!" And with that parting injunction, and a friendly nod, Combeferre departed with a barely audible 'pop,' leaving Enjolras to leave in a fashion more acceptable to those not wielding wands.

His smile was back, lingering and unconscious; not intended to charm, merely an expression of joy.

It had begun.


	3. Chapter Two

13th October, 1826.

The ink pot tumbled over, spilling its contents in a black flood over a page of loopy, excitable handwriting. Combeferre swore.

Behind him the cause of the accident winced. "Sorry. Did I startle you?"

"Not at all," Combeferre replied, making futile dabs at the pooling ink with his fingers, and wiping those on his robe in turn. This coat of ink, in fact, only served to make him blend in with his surroundings: the small rooms which comprised his lodging were a shambles of books and papers; immaculate volumes lining the rickety shelves on the walls, their finger print smudged comrades cluttering every article of furniture from the desk to the bed. Aeschylus vied more fiercely with Euripides for a spot on the limp pillow than he had for a ticket-of-leave from the underworld. "It's my policy to complete every assignment by rendering it utterly unreadable. Don't you know better than to sneak up on people, Courfeyrac?"

"I wasn't sneaking," Courfeyrac objected. "There was not one stealthy movement to my entrance; I merely Apparated in and said '_bonjour_.' You were engrossed. Is it important?"

"Only an essay that's taken me the better part of a month to research. On the relative effectiveness of potions and spells used to mend broken bones. What's fascinating is that in some cases the physical application of a salve--"

"Oh, hell," Courfeyrac interrupted him, and, uninvited, displaced a pile of ink bespattered books and papers to perch on the edge of the desk, for want of a spare chair. "Something you're going to miss, then. Can't you charm it clean?"

"No, I can't. If I do that, they'll detect the magic and assume I cheated."

"That's something I've never understood. What's the use of teaching these charms if there's never a practical use for them? _Don't_ magically calculate the accounts, they'll think we've doctored them, _don't_ repair your essay, they'll think you took it straight from a text. Still, I'll owe you a dinner for the extra work I've caused you. But the principle is still infuriating." Courfeyrac thumped the desk to emphasise his point, causing the droplets of ink to bounce like falling raindrops on impact. He was a good looking youth, in an unremarkable sort of way, with chestnut hair and merry green eyes and an infectious grin. Quintessentially bourgeois in his well tailored turquoise robes, neither extravagant enough for a bohemian nor elegant enough for an aristocrat, with an attention to hair and hands and well polished boots that stopped just shy of foppish and impeccable drawing room manners that were somehow never in evidence when he wasn't in a drawing room, it was difficult to determine whether his looks and mannerisms served as a subtle, satirical rebellion against the stolid existence of his class, or whether he was an ordinary young pup who hadn't found his feet yet.

"Utterly," agreed Combeferre, now shaking the marred paper dry, if not clean. "Though it would have been less so had my essay not been spoiled in the first place. To what dire need has my academic reputation been sacrificed, then?"

"Now that is interesting," Courfeyrac settled himself on the desk with the air of a man about to embark on a recount of epic proportions. "Not three days ago, I was slaving away at my desk like some latter day secretary to Crassus when I became aware that my fire was hissing at me. Now, as fascinating as the column of figures I was adding up was, this seemed intriguing enough to warrant further investigation, and when I turned my head to carry this out, what should I see gazing at me from the flames but the head of old Jean Prouvaire."

That, evidently, got Combeferre's attention, as the scholar allowed the essay to crumple like a wet rag on the desk, and looked up at his visitor with mingled curiosity and apprehension. "_Oui_, and?"

"Just that seemed anomalous enough, I should think. Monsieur Prouvaire and I have never been especially close--"

"Aurelien, you terrified him; you and Lucien both."

"Be that as it may, it was still an exceedingly strange visitor to have. 

"'Hello, m'sieur,' said I. 'What brings you here?'

"'News,' quoth he. 'Enjolras has been found, I've a letter from Combeferre.'

"'Has he?' I asked. 'But I heard otherwise from Madame Enjolras only yesterday.'

"'Well,' he said, 'I can't say I'm surprised; it was Combeferre who found him. And they're both being very mysterious about something.'

"Then he told me that you had asked him, with no explanation, not to tell anyone about Monsieur Enjolras' whereabouts but to come with all possible speed to Paris, as you had something to discuss with him. Which, I must say, hurt my pride a little-- _accio_," Courfeyrac produced his wand, and two apples came hurtling through the window to be caught, with a slight fumble, in his hand and the crook of his arm; one was tossed to Combeferre. "Why wasn't I invited to this reunion?"

"Possibly because you do things like that," Combeferre rebuked mildly, though he took a bite out of the apple. "Discretion, _mon ami_. How many Muggles will tell their grandchildren that they saw the fruit first molested by Adam and his mate soaring across the sky, intent on having its revenge on some particular descendant of that unfortunate couple? Though, if Prouvaire related the contents of my letter to you, perhaps he wasn't so circumspect as I'd hoped he would be."

"Precisely what I thought," Courfeyrac absentmindedly polished his fruit on his sleeve. "So I asked him: 'What the devil are you telling me this for, if you've been sworn to secrecy?'

"'Well,' he replied, 'does this seem like them, to you?'

"That gave me a moment's pause, I grant you. You've never been the conspiratorial type, but one can never be sure with an Enjolras. They imbibe intrigue with their mother's milk, even when they're not suckled on Malfoy venom. Still, recalling what I could of this particular scion, in the end I had to admit that it wasn't especially; our Enjolras was generally the candid type, to the best of my recollection."

"I see," Combeferre sounded wryly amused. "And between you, you decided we were far too suspicious to associate with, and you've come to deliver his regrets and your own chastisements."

The hand that Courfeyrac had half lifted to bring the apple to his mouth again dropped abruptly to his lap. "By that do you infer that you haven't seen Prouvaire?"

"No, I haven't. Haven't you?"

"Not since that conversation." There was no laughter in Courfeyrac now, and he tossed the gnawed on apple from hand to hand in sudden agitation. "He said he'd like me to keep an eye open, in case there was some sort of unanticipated trouble, something about Imperius curses and political abductions, and I thought-- well, it's _Prouvaire_, and everything's bound to be either a romance or a conspiracy-- but I promised and, true to my word, I put in an appearance at his lodgings this morning. No sign. After looking about a bit, I learned where he was studying and asked there. They're a vacuous lot, I can tell you, the nineteenth century might as well never have happened, but eventually his mentor informed me that he'd asked for leave at some indeterminate point in the recent past and hadn't been seen since. My immediate thought was that he had met up with you and forgotten all about me amidst the reminiscences, but I thought I'd better make certain and-- _damn_. You did write to him, didn't you?"

"Of course I did, you heard me say so." Combeferre rubbed a hand across his face, smudging his cheeks and forehead blue-black. "Two weeks ago. A couple of days back, he was supposed to meet us and didn't, but we thought he simply preferred not to become involved, or that his owl had got lost again."

"What in God's name have you got mixed up in?"

"_Nothing_. I haven't, anyway; I can't vouch for Lucien completely, but he gave the impression that he'd been avoiding the Wizarding community entirely."

"Has he? Why?"

"That is a very long story, and not entirely mine to tell," Combeferre got up, causing another avalanche of paper. "Oh for God's sake-- give me a hand with these? Since you're here, you'd better come and talk to him; he'll want to question you."

His companion regarded him with frank bewilderment, but slid off the desk to assist collecting the pages into an indecipherable, and certainly not consecutive, jumble. "Question me? Have you become a legate to General Enjolras since last we spoke, Combeferre? Is there a uniform?"

"Indeed there is, and you'll need one too, if you're going to pass unnoticed," and the scholar set down his armload of work and removed from a hook on the wall a shabby brown suit of clothes distinguishable from his present outfit only by the separation of trousers from coat, and the division of the lower garment into two legs.

Courfeyrac promptly choked on a mouthful of apple and the carelessly collated paper slithered back onto the floor. "And _what_," he forced out between splutters, "d'you call _that?_"

"A suit, such as a Muggle student might wear," Combeferre released the waistcoat he was wrestling from its hook in order to have a free hand to thump his friend on the back. "Don't asphyxiate, Aurelien, you have _seen_ such things before."

"Yes," retorted the other, with tears welling in his eyes, either from want of air, or laughter, "but I wasn't aware of quite how ridiculous they look, never having had the opportunity to study a set at close hand before."

"Get used to the sight, _mon ami_," said Combeferre. "You'll have to find an outfit before we go out, and as the Legate Combeferre feels responsible for the _miles_ Prouvaire, he will definitely be escorting the errant centurion who has just reported to him to the _imperator_, so out we must go."

"If Enjolras is to be a second Caesar, by your analogy, you make a poor Mark Antony, friend Combeferre," Courfeyrac quipped. "Unless Cleopatra is hiding in one of these books."

"It was your analogy, to begin with," Combeferre shrugged. "And I think I should have said _Brutus_, not Caesar."

"Ahh, but Brutus lost."

"It depends on which you refer to."

"True enough," Courfeyrac held up his hands, or rather one hand and an apple core, in defeat. "And Enjolras, I should hope, knows enough to heed a soothsayer in a prophetic fit. Do I really have to dress like you?"

"Absolutely; we can't Apparate to Enjolras' quarters, or he'll have every auror in Paris chasing after him. We can only go as far as the city, and walk the rest of the way. And to be inconspicuous, you'll need to look like something _other_ than a wizard."

"It's a pity I wasn't a better student of transfiguration," sighed Courfeyrac, eyeing the clothes his friend had exchanged his robe for with more chagrin than mirth, now that he was imagining himself in them. "Then I could have looked like a duck. Is that coat the fashion of Paris?"

"Probably not," Combeferre admitted. "I can't say I paid all that much mind to the cut of my coat. But does it really matter? It isn't as though you're going to make a habit of being seen in Paris in _Moldu_ costume. Just-- _improvise_."

"Improvise," Courfeyrac repeated sourly. "All right, all right, I'll find something. I hope Prouvaire appreciates the pains I'm taking for him."

"No doubt he will immortalise your labours in verse, if nothing untoward's happened to him."

"A limerick, perhaps, and I'll find myself ignominiously rhymed with an underdressed hack-- yes, I'm going, I'll be as quick as I can."

Evidently, Courfeyrac kept his word and dressed with some alacrity, because after a matter of minutes he returned, attired appropriately, if one was attending a carnival. His waistcoat was a most unfortunate purple, with gold stitching, the trousers were a dull red, like the nauseating colour of the cloak of the Red Death and the coat, while decent enough in itself, was an alarmingly sombre grey in contrast with the rest of the ensemble. In place of a necktie, for which nothing could be found, he had wound a heavy scarf around his neck to conceal his collar; if nobody thought he was mad, this touch might lead them to think he was delirious from fever.

This time, it was Combeferre's turn to laugh, and the generally sober young man suffered such peals of it that he fell out of his chair, to be caught by a volume of some letters by Cicero.

Being generally good humoured, there was nothing Courfeyrac could do but grin back, and adjust his scarf artistically. "My penance for mocking you, m'sieur," he said with a bow, and extended a hand to his friend to haul him from the floor and from antiquity. "But if one dresses from cast offs and costume chests, one must expect at least a passing resemblance to Harlequin."

"If you go out like that, you'll be spotted for a wizard for sure," once he had caught his breath Combeferre allowed himself to be pulled up. "_And_ you forgot your hat."

"So I did," admitted Courfeyrac, pulling out his wand. "Something was bound to go by the wayside. But I'll see what I can do with this."

After fifteen minutes of experimenting, the trousers were approximately the same colour as the coat, and while the waistcoat refused to transmute itself into either grey or black, it did at length manage a dark green; the gold embroidery he kept, having a penchant for the extravagant. Since he professed to be inept at transfiguration, Combeferre worked on the scarf, and eventually produced something not wholly unlike a cravat, though his friend, in tying it on, albeit not without careful directions, remarked on a vague resemblance to a hangman's noose.

"There!" said Courfeyrac, admiring the final result while settling Combeferre's spare hat on his head. "Not bad for improvisation, as you call it. If we fail at intellectual pursuits, _mon ami_, we could always set ourselves up as tailors."

"Provided we're only asked to alter the colour of our customers' clothes."

"Everyone has their limitations. Where are we headed, then?"

"There's a café on the Place Saint-Michel we have reserved for comings and goings. Musain, I think it's called. Do you know it?"

"Why would I know it?"

"You'll have to follow me, then. Take care not to miss the mark; if you appear in the middle of the street, all our precautions are undone."

"I think I know better than that," said Courfeyrac scornfully, and clapped his friend on the shoulder. "Your medical ambitions are misplaced; you lecture enough for a professor."

Mercifully, the transference took place without incident, and the pair slipped out the back door with rather more caution than aided in being inconspicuous, and set off through the streets, smug at the dearth of curious glances at their persons.

Enjolras had lodged himself in an improbably teetering building that balanced itself on one of the streets of the Latin Quarter. It had been selected, no doubt, for its penurious appearance, the loose shutters and crumbling stonework being a constructed disguise for a wealthy wizard in hiding amongst Muggle folk, but it leaned and tottered and wobbled to such a degree that Courfeyrac, eyeing it for the first time with a degree of incredulity hissed to his companion: "Are you _sure_ that isn't held up by magic?"

"I shouldn't think so," Combeferre murmured, scrutinising the stonework . "Look at the construction; it's relatively recent. Built long after the division, anyway."

Courfeyrac rolled his eyes. "You take everything literally, _mon ami_. If I said a man was a veritable Horatius, you wouldn't believe me until he'd burned a bridge."

"Horatius is a man long dead, and I wouldn't expect to see an exact replica. There are, however, numerous Parisian buildings with magic in their mortar; sometime, if you can bear the indignity of trousers for the length of such an excursion, I'll give you a tour. But let us go up."

They mounted the stairs with no more trouble than they had managed the Apparation, though Courfeyrac wore up all three flights the studied nonchalance of a man who expects the whole structure to collapse under him at any moment, and doesn't want to mention the fact; he did, however, note as they ascended to the final landing that it was just like an Enjolras to insist on living right under the rafters. "Soaring ever upwards with his sacred swans."

"Hush, Aurelien, you know he doesn't like to be reminded of his Pythian ancestry. Any more than you like to be called de Courfeyrac." Combeferre rapped sharply on the door.

There was a long pause, like an apprehensive indrawn breath, before the door was opened, as if the inhabitant feared that doing so might set off some chain of events that would end with him in manacles. However, opened it was, and Lucien Enjolras peered out, wearing the same rumpled suit he had met Combeferre in, albeit minus the coat and with the cravat tugged irritably loose at his throat. Moreover, he wore the distracted expression of a man abruptly shaken from deep thought, and his right hand was still curled around a quill. "Jérémie..?"

"Luc," Combeferre chided gently, "do you really think aurors would _knock_ before they dragged you back to the bosom of your family?"

"I suppose not." Somehow, Enjolras contrived to make the admission without looking in the least bit sheepish. "What brings you here? I thought we'd arranged to meet at Musain?"

"Yes, but something's come up," Combeferre moved aside a little, to reveal the grinning face of Courfeyrac. "We appear to have lost a poet, but gained a bourgeois."

"_Bonjour_, Enjolras," Courfeyrac announced himself, no more offended by the description than Enjolras had been abashed at his excess of caution, and pushed past both him and Combeferre into the former's lodgings. "_Mon Dieu_, m'sieur, have you become a Cynic since last we spoke?"

Enjolras' room was certainly Spartan enough to warrant the remark. For furnishings he had nothing but bed, desk, chair and a little chest of drawers and as he lived right under the eaves, the ceiling so tapered down over the bed that a sleeper who sat up suddenly could concuss himself badly enough as to be rendered unconscious for a week. Nominally, the floor was covered by a carpet, but this was so threadbare that it was more as if somebody had flung a handful of woollen thread on the floor for decorative purposes, and it had more or less tangled itself into a single object. Certainly he possessed no fewer books than Combeferre had, but whereas the philosopher allowed his to roam freely about the room-- sometimes quite literally, where the magical volumes were concerned-- Enjolras' collection stood in stiff regimental form along the shelves and backed against the wall on the desk; similarly his papers had been stacked in so orderly a fashion that one might have suffered a paper cut from them at ten paces distance. Every book, legal, historical, philosophical was by a Muggle author, and about Muggle concerns. Not even the Classical wizards had been granted a place. Indeed there was not the faintest whiff of magic in the place, not even an owl or a broomstick.

Enjolras ignored the friendly raillery, but looked quizzically at Combeferre. "What do you mean 'lost a poet?'"

"It seems Prouvaire indicated to Aurelien here that he intended to meet with us-- then vanished en route."

"How long ago was this?" For the first time, Enjolras turned his attention to Courfeyrac.

"Three days, since I saw him, but I didn't become alarmed until today. He has left, absconded, escaped and disappeared, as Cicero would have it, but since Prouvaire's no Catiline, I'm more worried than infuriated. Just what have you done with him, Enjolras?"

"Nothing," Enjolras' pale brows drew together in a frown. "But it sounds as though somebody's done something. Damn. We'd best keep clear of Musain, then. For all we know, my grandfather's having it watched."

"If it was his family that had stopped him," Combeferre reasoned, "I'm sure we'd have heard something by now-- your mother would have had us all turned into horseshoes and sent to a smith to be hammered for one thing. Besides, Jean's father isn't known for marking his son's comings and goings."

"True, and since we've done nothing as yet, and Prouvaire knows the least of any of us, I can't see that they'd have held him for questioning. And even now, I doubt they could hold a Prouvaire long, no matter what evidence they had against him. The name's too old, and their disgrace too ill defined."

"All the same, we'll have to find out what's become of him. It may be our fault."

"_D'accord_." Thoughtfully, Enjolras shook his head. "Where to begin, though, that's the question-- Courfeyrac, have you any idea what might have happened to him?"

"Your courtesy only grows more marked by the year, Lucien," retorted Courfeyrac dryly, albeit not answering the question.

"Eh?"

"Do you know, it's been ten minutes since I bad you good day, and you've not given me so much as a nod of greeting yet? Not to mention the fact that until a couple of days ago, I was quite sure you were dead."

"Forgive me, Aurelien, I was distracted," and now Enjolras had the grace to look at least a little ashamed, and proffered his hand. "How have you been?"

"Until this morning, I would have said 'bored,'" replied Courfeyrac, taking Enjolras' hand with as much ease as if it had been promptly offered at the moment of their meeting. "Since I understand about as much of my daily toil of accounts and records as a medieval copyist did of Plato, but now you've piqued my curiosity-- what _are_ you doing, you and Combeferre?"

"Can I rely on you?" asked Enjolras, regarding his severely, and withdrawing his hand.

"Don't get your back up, Lucien. Am I really the sort you think likely to go running to anybody's parents with tales of their indiscretions? When Prouvaire didn't turn up, I came to you, after all, not the aurors."

"That's fair," said Enjolras repentantly, and ran a hand through his hair. "To be honest, there's not much to tell, but this business with Jean Prouvaire has made me worry. We haven't done anything, barring talking a bit, and that only with each other. I've an idea that some changes need to be made-- of the sort my illustrious clan, among others, wouldn't like."

"You want to depose the oligarchs," said Courfeyrac, with a mischievous light glinting in his green eyes, giving him a look that wouldn't have been alien on a leprechaun. "Well, why didn't you say so? Down with the Pisistratids, the Caesars and the Medicis."

"Be serious, Courfeyrac-- I'm talking about undoing the Secrecy Statute."

"Oh." Courfeyrac's mirth was whisked away in a mercurial whirlwind, and, rather wide eyed, he tugged at his improvised necktie; despite Combeferre's best efforts, it still tended towards fuzzy and was inclined to itch. "No, they wouldn't like that."

"So you see why we're a bit on edge," explained Combeferre from the vantage point the had taken up, leaning against the desk; unfortunately he had also knocked askew a precious set of papers in doing so and, noticing this, Enjolras stepped aside to straighten them.

"What's your opinion on the matter, Courfeyrac?"

"I think," said Courfeyrac seriously, "that I want to hear more about how you've come to the conclusion that something so drastic is necessary, when we've less emergency and more leisure. But I can't say I'm appalled. My family scraped in over the census, and over a hundred years later, the aristocrats still look at us as though our parents were Muggles. We haven't done so well under it, and there are others who've done far worse; though the Muggles don't seem to miss us much." He looked out the window at the bustling city with a sort of wry amusement. "Right now, I want to know where Prouvaire's got to. I promised him I'd step in if there was trouble. And this may all be coincidence, but it looks like trouble's what he's found himself in, unless he's just succeeded in splinching himself."

"First thing's first," said Enjolras, looking up from his freshly arranged notes. "Perhaps you weren't the only one he asked to keep a look out, and maybe he left word with them and forgot you."

Combeferre bit his lip in thought. "Does anyone remember who he was fond of at school?"

"_Mon Dieu_," Courfeyrac laughed. "What a question. Wrote sonnets to a different mademoiselle in the girls' wing every month, and never found the courage to get most of them delivered. They'd all be respectable matrons by now, with the next generation of wizarding pride gurgling at their breasts. Such a tragic waste of charm and beauty, the shackles of respectability."

"Never mind that," said Enjolras, a trifle testily; he was never quite comfortable where talk of women was concerned. "Wasn't he friends with that Delacour boy?"

A sharp whistle escaped Courfeyrac's lips. "You've been in exile too long, Enjolras. Roland Delacour was killed in a dragon hunt a year ago. Prouvaire was inconsolable-- I saw him at the funeral, the poor boy had a fair turn out. But unless you're suggesting necromancy, you'll get no information from that quarter."

"Damn. Who else?"

There was a long, considering silence, before a brief, delighted laugh burst out of Combeferre: "Oh, I remember: Bahorel."

Courfeyrac looked amazed. "You don't mean _Joseph_ Bahorel? When were they ever friendly?"

"Oh, you remember what he was like," said Combeferre with the tolerance of nostalgia. "Never could manage Ancient Runes, so he used to bully we younger boys into doing his for him, if one of us showed even a glimmer of aptitude. Then he tried it on Jean, and got the shock of his life. Prouvaire gave him a lecture on profaning the Mysteries, and called him a plethora of names-- all in Greek, I doubt he understood a word, and challenged him to a duel over the matter. Whether they ever had one, I don't know, but Bahorel held him in high esteem after that, though I don't think they ever spent much time in each other's company. I've heard they exchange letters occasionally, though."

"Jean Prouvaire did that?" said Courfeyrac, amazed. "I wouldn't have thought he had it in him."

"Then you've never heard him argue the cult of Eleusis as being the basis of some of our euphoria inducing charms. He's not as mild mannered as he seems."

"All right, that's a start," said Enjolras. "Where is Bahorel?"

Both Combeferre and Courfeyrac looked blank.

"I see." A note of exasperation crept into Enjolras' voice. "So in order to locate one missing man, we must first find another."

"Yes, I do see the irony," Courfeyrac's grin flitted back across his face. "But come now, how hard could hunting a Bahorel be? We'll just follow the trail of broken glass and bruises."

"I'd recommend starting with the more elite Wizarding cafés," suggested Combeferre reflectively. "Don't you remember how, back at school, he used to hover around the Malfoys with his ears pricked, just waiting for one of them to sneer, or use the word 'giant?' I can just see him lurking at a table, daring the management to suggest that he leave."

"Shall we split up?" enquired Courfeyrac. "There are a fair few to cover."

"No," said Enjolras, "I'm not mislaying anyone else. We'll work our way around together tonight-- yes, me as well, Jérémie. I know I can't stay in hiding forever. If I'm summoned for a parental reprimand as a result, so be it. Perhaps I'll get a chance to ask Grandfather about Prouvaire."

"_D'accord_," said Combeferre. "Though I can't help feeling this whole enterprise has a curse on it, given that we've already lost a man before he's been properly recruited."

"Nonsense," Courfeyrac contradicted him cheerfully. "You've gained me, as a replacement, at least temporarily. Fate is keeping your odds well balanced, for the moment. Save your judgement on her favour until you've heard Prouvaire's opinion. You may find you've two more men, instead of one."

But it was Enjolras who had the last word on the matter, unsurprisingly: "Your help is certainly welcome, Aurelien, and I'm confident we'll at least manage to unearth Jean Prouvaire. But that is nothing like the point of the matter. It's not the Parcae I'm interested in. It's Libertas."


End file.
